Eric Bischoff Explains Why He Agrees With WWE's Vince McMahon Over Montreal Screwjob

The Montreal Screwjob, as it became known, is perhaps WWE's most infamous incident to date. As the story goes, it was a move conspired between those in WWE, chiefly Vince McMahon, to get Bret Hart to drop the WWE Championship to Shawn Michaels against his will. Hart was set to join WCW, and as Eric Bischoff explained during "83 Weeks", Vince had concerns about his top title. 

"First of all, I agree with Vince," he started before explaining, "The unfortunate part of this whole story was that Vince was convinced that I was going to somehow convince Bret Hart to bring the belt over to WCW and drop the WWF belt in the trash just like I had done with Madusa [Alundra Blayze]." Bischoff divulged that, while he doesn't blame Vince for having the concern, there was no way he could do something like that due to WWE's ongoing lawsuit surrounding Scott Hall and Kevin Nash. However, there was no way McMahon could have known that at the time. Bischoff also revealed that he had personally encouraged Hart to do business on the way out, and that he was going to be Bret Hart with or without the belt.

"Here's where Bret screwed Bret", said Bischoff, "I don't even think it was about dropping the belt, it was dropping the belt in Montreal. Because Bret was convinced that he was a Canadian hero of such significant magnitude that it would have a devastating impact ... Bret's vision of himself as the Canadian hero was going to be compromised if he did the job in Montreal." Bischoff reiterated that he felt Hart was being silly, and fundamentally agreed with McMahon's comments following the incident. He said, "It would have been the right thing to do. It just wasn't the right thing to do for Bret's ego at that point in time."